Mark Reviews Movies: SO COLD THE RIVER

So Cold the River, Saban Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 24, 2022

Here's a little film with a notable sense of otherworldly atmosphere and dread. So Cold the River may not add up to much—or even make much logical sense—by the end, but writer/director Paul Shoulberg's eerie adaptation of Michael Koryta's novel features some fine performances, an intriguing protagonist, and a great location to serve as its backdrop. That can be enough for a film to succeed, and it is in this case.

The story revolves around documentary filmmaker Erica Shaw (Bethany Joy Lenz, equal parts weary and tough), whose career has hit a slump after one of her projects made a convincing but wrong argument with fatal consequences. She's now doing AV projects for hire in Chicago, and after doing a slideshow for a funeral, Erica gets a gig to look into the origins of a family's patriarch.

That takes her to the small town of West Baden, Indiana, and its resort hotel, which is a moody marvel to behold here, with its imposing structure in the middle of nowhere, domed lobby, and old-fashioned interior design (Cinematographer Madeline Kate Kann uses the available light, as well as its absence, to spooky effect). The man in question used to live in this town, and when Erica raises his name to chatterbox and amateur local historian Anne (Denna Dunagan), she goes uncharacteristically quiet. The man's infamous reputation, involving a kidnapping and a series of murders, has become the stuff of unspoken legend.

Anyway, Erica also has a bottle of local water, an heirloom of the killer's family, and after she drinks some of the liquid, the filmmaker, who already has a kind of sixth sense about people, starts having visions of the man and his crimes. Helping her investigate and put together the project is intern Kellyn (Katie Sarife), who's Erica self-proclaimed "biggest fan," and meanwhile, hotel groundskeeper Josiah (Andrew J. West), the killer's only descendant still living in the town, is potentially Erica's key to determining if there's something supernatural or genetic to that family's curse—or something like that.

Shoulberg knows and takes advantage of the inherent strengths in this material: the central location, the guilt-ridden and ethically compromised protagonist, the question of evil as something intrinsic or learned, and the games and tricks of either Erica's mind or some other realm, in which the past and its horrors persist. From a filmmaking standpoint, the trickery is simple, such as jump cuts (a train appearing out of nowhere) and staging that exploits camera movement (In one shot, a series of pans reveal and hide a mirror that reveals and hides its own secrets), but effective.

On a foundational level, a lot of this story is supernatural hokum. Even so, So Cold the River smartly plays it straight, with some concern for the actual and potential darkness in its characters, and with an engaging sense of ethereal mystery.

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